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Parent Instincts vs. Photographer Instincts

There are clearly instincts that parents have. I realized this early on when I thought Micah, as a newborn, was going to spit up. I rushed to put my hand under his mouth so that it wouldn’t get on his clothes. That was my natural reaction. Reaction times as a parent, even after hours of lost sleep, somehow resemble those of Peter Parker after being bit by that radioactive spider. (We also have that spidey-sense, too.)

As a photographer I find that sometimes that natural parental instinct can be overridden by the need to take a picture of the moment. One time Sarah and I left the room for a moment only to come back and find Micah hidden with chocolate smeared all over his face. He had somehow found a small Reese’s cup and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth, wrapper and all. After quickly taking the wrapper out of his mouth I HAD to snap a quick picture of his guilty, chocolate covered face.

Today a similar thing happened. Micah was walking around the dining room eating out of his snack trap. I turned away for few moments. Then I heard Sarah gasp loudly as she entered the room. I turned around and saw that Micah had grabbed a Keurig K-cup from the table and was eating the coffee grounds from it. Like with the chocolate, it was all over his face. Sarah had the reaction that I would assume would probably be true for all parents — to quickly take the K-cup away. But I realized, as I was in the process of grabbing my camera, that my reaction was to take a picture of this moment.